by Massive Voodoo

Hey Jungle,

well, well, well ... it is Christmas time here in Germany and many other places on this world. Again. This went fast.

The jungle of Massive Voodoo will be in vacation mode until the new year, but before we say officially goodbye we will have some cool content for you, just before Christmas.
Call these posts Christmas gifts ...

This will be a small sum up and final additions to this years MV's year of the painter 2.
If you want to keep track with an overview on what has happened so far in
MV's year of the painter 2 please check this link!

The one for today is Roman's article speaking about"how to pack your miniatures for shipping, the right way".

2.0Roman is now taking over the article. We hope you enjoy.

This article is called 2.0 as I already wrote an article about this topic some years ago. You can find it here. In the meantime, more experiences were made and I want to take you on a tour on how I pack my miniatures if I got to ship these delicate beauties with postal service.

First rule when shipping models:Always pray to the gods of save shipments.
Second rule:Ship prepared and well thought.

At the end of this figure painting season, after Monte San Savino Show I had to prepare a lot of shipments of figures I sold during the year. Many thanks to everyone who supported me in my art, passion and work and many thanks for all your patience in this. As always I prepared myself well and tried to have everything ready for the big packing days.

Models and Tupperware. Why this?

I use Tupperware that I try to buy cheap via Amazon. Sometimes they got really good offers. I try not to buy unsturdy Tupperware as it has a special tasks when I ship my models. I'll explain soon. Check for different sizes to pack different sized projects.

Now let's pack one model together.

Bubble wrap is placed around the model.

It is now tightened up with using tape.

Make sure you take care and know your model well. Do not use too much pressure.

This will now be placed in a plastic box that fits the model well. Leave some space, to be filled with sponge parts I was collecting over the year from different models.

The space I left, will now be filled with the sponge parts. I take good care that the models plinth is to the lower area of the box and everything fits well, tight, but not too tight. It should not move easily. Again now your model well and take care not to break something.

Also check the content's height in the box.

You know you want to place its lid on top.

I do place a business card, little candy fun and some stickers in the parcel too.

It can look different from parcel to parcel, depending on what I got to pack. Here four 28 mm models.

I then place the lids on all prepared boxes. Mark them with the name of my customer or the model inside. This is important to not ship the wrong model to its destination. As I am a big Batman fan I also place a Batman sticker on my parcels. Packed by Batman.

Then I take these plastic boxes inside the box I want to sent with. And stuff everything around it with stuffing stuff.

Then I wrap it up.

While I pack, I also repaint plinths black which might show damage due travels to figure events.

While I pack I take my time. Well it is taking its time by the task I got to do. Therefor I try to choose nice spots in the studio with a good view while focusing on the packing.Make sure you have enough space to handle everything simoultaniously without searching too much fur stuff while you are focusing on the task ahead of you.

Nice.

Do I like packing miniatures?
Frankly no. It is hard work if you want to do it good, but hard work often pays off and such many boxes ready to their new homes makes me feel happy and proud at the end of the day.Batman stickers for the win.

I actually hate shipping models,
but it is part of my job. All I can do is to make the journey as easy for the miniature inside as possible. That means taking as much care as needed to feel "ok" when you bring the parcel to the post office, where the really wild journey for the model begins.

Also think about customs, depending where you ship. They might open up your parcel and want to have a look inside. Tell them to be careful, just in case.

And then pack some more, because it is so much fun :)

I hope this article can help and inspire to find your own way to ship your models with maximum protection. I still can not garantuee a 100% save shipping with this as you never know what happens with the parcel when it meets up with many others of its kind, maybe a big guy will fall on it, because he is drunk on Christmas. You never know, but well try to avoid shipping models in Christmas time. They get lost more easier in that postal chaos. Try to ship several weeks ahead of Christmas.

Comments:

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Tutorial: How to pack your miniatures the right way 2.0

Having received a lot of minis via the mail form a lot of different artists I would have to say Roman knows what he is talking about. Here are some additional factors. Pack the mini with the knowledge that at some point the box will be dropped kicked. (Sorry - most countries do NOT have a mail service that acknowledges 'fragile'). If you are shipping a metal mini that is not fully pinned then it WILL fall apart. DO NOT kid yourself. You may have shipped something before that didn't but there are shock and temperature differentials that will break your glue bonds. If you still need to ship and unpinned metal mini then assume it will fall apart so pack it such that the individual parts will not rub/bag against each other else your customer will end up with a mini in pieces and lots of chipped paint.... Take care with pointy bits. If they get 'caught' in your packing and foam then they can snap off - particularly as part of the unpacking!

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